2007-08 Northern California Technical Communication Competition

The Berkeley, East Bay, North Bay, San Francisco, and Silicon Valley chapters are co-sponsoring a technical communication competition. A substantial portion of the proceeds will benefit the STC Kenneth Gordon Scholarship. The Gordon Scholarship committee is managing the competition.

The competition serves Northern California, but we accept entries from elsewhere. If you have a local competition, we hope you will support it by sending your entries there. If you are in our area, we hope you will support our competition by sending your entries here.

We send Distinguished award winners to the Society level competitions for technical publications, online communication, and technical art. Last year, all of the entries we sent to the Society level won Distinguished there, and one won Best of Show. We are proud of the quality of entries we receive and the quality of our judging process.

Entries must be received by noon, Saturday, September 21, 2007.

For additional information, please visit the STC Berkeley Chapter website.

2007 Gordon Scholarship Winners Announced

By Patrick Lufkin

The Dr. Kenneth M. Gordon Memorial Scholarship has announced that Ayelet Prizant and Shiria Behiri have each been awarded a Gordon Scholarship in the amount of $750. Both are students in San Francisco State University's Technical and Professional Writing Program.

Sponsored by the combined STC chapters of Northern California, Gordon scholarships are awarded at the beginning of each academic year. Award recipients are also offered a complimentary basic student membership in STC.

To qualify, applicants must be currently enrolled in a technical communication program at an accredited college or university, and have completed enough work to demonstrate their potential for success in the field.

The scholarship is named for Dr. Kenneth M. Gordon. Dr. Gordon worked as a technical editor at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory and was a popular, long-time member of the East Bay chapter of STC. He was president of the chapter from 1985-88, and also its newsletter editor. He is remembered as an early advocate for the Northern California Technical Communication Competition, and for having contributed greatly to the success of STC in Northern California in the early years.

The scholarship was created in 1992 when the East Bay chapter discovered that it had $20,000 left over from having run a very successful 1990-91 technical communication competition. Dr. Gordon had recently died, and those involved decided to set aside $10,000 of the proceeds to establish a scholarship in his name.

Since that time, the Gordon Scholarship has been funded with proceeds from the Northern California Technical Communication Competition. This year's competition is currently ramping up. If you would like to enter or help, contact the competition director, Richard Mateosian at xrm AT pacbell.net.

For more information on the scholarship, contact the scholarship chair, Patrick Lufkin, lufkin AT ix.netcom.com.

Patrick Lufkin is a senior member of STC and Chair of the Gordon Scholarship.

STC Board of Directors Event - Early Bird Discount Extended to Wednesday, August 15 !!

See below for more info. :)

STC Board of Directors Event - Early Bird Discount Ends Saturday, August 11 !!

The STC Board is meeting this August in Berkeley. With the fourteen voting board members will be the STC Executive Director, other staff from the main office, and other members in special roles who support special work of the board. The last time that the board met in this area was about eight years ago, so you can see that this is a special occasion.

Here is an excellent opportunity for chapter leaders and STC members to meet with the board face to face, express concerns, share ideas, and create a connection with the leaders of the Society, an opportunity usually available only at the annual conference.

I hope that you will be able to come to the dinner and Board presentation, which take place after the board meeting on Saturday, August 18. An early bird discount rate is available only through this Saturday, August 11, so reserve today.

Click here for more information!